nditions named in the
decree aforesaid.

_In witness whereof_, I have hereunto signed my name and caused the seal
of the Commonwealth to be affixed, at the Capitol in Boston, this
twelfth day of July in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred
and ninety-seven.

ROGER WOLCOTT.

By His Excellency the Governor,
WM. M. OLIN,
_Secretary of the Commonwealth._

ADDRESS

OF THE

HON. GEORGE F. HOAR.

[Illustration:]

ADDRESS OF SENATOR HOAR.

The first American Ambassador to Great Britain, at the end of his
official service, comes to Massachusetts on an interesting errand. He
comes to deliver to the lineal successor of Governor Bradford, in the
presence of the representatives and rulers of the body politic formed by
the compact on board the "Mayflower," Nov. 11, 1620, the only authentic
history of the founding of their Commonwealth; the only authentic
history of what we have a right to consider the most important political
transaction that has ever taken place on the face of the earth.

Mr. Bayard has sought to represent to the mother country, not so much
the diplomacy as the good-will of the American people. If in this
anybody be tempted to judge him severely, let us remember what his great
predecessor, John Adams, the first minister at the same court,
representing more than any other man, embodying more than any other man,
the spirit of Massachusetts, said to George III., on the first day of
June, 1785, after the close of our long and bitter struggle for
independence: "I shall esteem myself the happiest of men if I can be
instrumental in restoring an entire esteem, confidence and affection,
or, in better words, the old good-nature and the old good-humor between
people who, though separated by an ocean and under different
governments, have the same language, a similar religion and kindred
blood."

And let us remember, too, the answer of the old monarch, who, with all
his faults, must have had something of a noble and royal nature stirring
in his bosom, when he replied: "Let the circumstances of language,
religion and blood have their natural and full effect."

It has long been well known that Governor Bradford wrote and left behind
him a history of the settlement of Plymouth. It was quoted by early
chroniclers. There are extracts from it in the records at Plymouth.
Thomas Prince used it when he compiled his annals. Hubbard depended on
it when he wrote his "History of New England." Cot